Robert de Clari (or Cléry, the modern name of the place, on the commune of Pernois[1]) was a knight from Picardy.
Robert's descriptions often shed light on some of the crusader activities that are otherwise glossed over by the higher rank sources.
Robert's brother, Aleaumes, was an armed cleric who distinguished himself during the final siege of Constantinople, when the usurping emperor Alexius V "Murzuphlus" Ducas was routed by the crusaders.
One of the prominent noble leaders of the crusade, Count Hugh of Saint-Pol, judged in favor of Aleaumes.
[4] As there is no mention of this "shroud" in any other source, the historian Andrea Nicolotti suggests that Robert’s account is quite a confused description of the famous miracle that occurred every Friday in the church of Blachernae: the so-called “habitual miracle”, that consisted in the prodigious elevation of a cloth before an icon of the Virgin.